Deccan Herald: Opinion: Sunday, September 13, 2026.
The installation of CCTV cameras in various parts of a police station, except washrooms, and the preservation of the recordings for up to 18 months has become mandatory as a preventive measure against custodial torture.
Last
week, a reputable journalist commented with cautious optimism on the recent
crop of bold judgments and the emanation of brave noises from the judges’
corner, which are not accommodating of the ruling establishment’s partisan
interests. He cites examples: the Allahabad High Court’s rebuke of a District
Magistrate for illegally detaining a young woman activist under the draconian
National Security Act (NSA) and its order to recover the Rs 5 lakh compensation
awarded to her from the former’s salary; the Punjab and Haryana High Court
Chief Justice’s remarks about the importance of the rule of law; the Chief
Justice of India’s verbal support for the expression of popular dissent in a
peaceful manner.
However, has the ‘judicial worm turned’ perceptibly to protect people’s right to know? Earlier this month, another bench of the Allahabad High Court upheld the State Information Commission’s decision to deny a citizen access to CCTV footage recorded at a local police station. The court approved the government’s claim that the footage has sensitive contents barred from disclosure under Section 8(1)(g) of the RTI Act. This exemption clause was crafted only to prevent endangerment of a person’s life or physical safety or disclosure of the identity of intelligence informants. Nothing in the court’s order indicates that the judges examined the footage themselves to ascertain the truth. The court ruled that CCTV footage may be provided only to a competent court or a human rights commission (HRC), and only if a requester files a complaint about police behaviour with either of them.
The installation of CCTV cameras in various parts of a police station, except washrooms, and the preservation of the recordings for up to 18 months has become mandatory as a preventive measure against custodial torture. In December 2020, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court issued detailed directions for this purpose in the Paramvir Singh Saini case. Last September, a prominent Hindi-language daily reported several custodial deaths in Rajasthan within less than a year, and the police’s alleged denial of CCTV footage to the victims’ families under RTI. Within a few days, an alert apex court initiated suo motu proceedings to ascertain compliance with its 2020 directions. Discussions are on between the court-appointed amicus curiae and the central and state governments on the manner of funding available to implement these directions and for creating a public dashboard that will disclose, in real time, which CCTV camera has died in which police station.
Interestingly, three days ago, the Karnataka Information Commission reportedly imposed penalties in the Rs 15,000-25,000 range on three police officers for failing to act on its earlier direction to supply CCTV footage to an RTI applicant. The Kalaburagi-based Information Commissioner also recommended the initiation of disciplinary action against them.
In 2024, I collaborated with City Core Group – a community-level collective of human rights activists in Mumbai, mostly comprising women – to ascertain the status of compliance with the apex court’s directions. They walked into 33 of the 91 police stations without seeking any official permission, telling the police that those are public offices and that they have every right to ascertain compliance with court directions issued for their benefit. They also successfully obtained CCTV footage covering the duration of their presence in the stations from five of them, through RTI.
These contrasting realities beg the question: should CCTV camera footage become a sarkari secret, accessible only to courts and HRCs? Section 33(2) of Kerala’s 2011 Police Act states: “No Police Officer shall prevent any member of the public from lawfully making any audio or video or electronic record of any Police action or activity carried out in a public or private place.” Since 2022, the Bombay High Court has ruled more than once that a citizen cannot be prosecuted under the 1923 Official Secrets Act for recording his/her interactions with the police using a mobile phone, because a police station is not a notified ‘prohibited area’. If this is increasingly becoming the standard for police-public interactions, there is no reason why CCTV footage recorded by the police themselves should be denied to those who ask, unless the disclosure causes harm to any of the public interests protected by the RTI Act.
Readers might ask: how will CCTV cameras help when torture or extra-judicial killings occur in the field? Is it time to make body cameras an essential part of the outfits of our law enforcement personnel?
The writer wakes up every morning thinking someone somewhere is hiding something.
(Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.)
The installation of CCTV cameras in various parts of a police station, except washrooms, and the preservation of the recordings for up to 18 months has become mandatory as a preventive measure against custodial torture.
However, has the ‘judicial worm turned’ perceptibly to protect people’s right to know? Earlier this month, another bench of the Allahabad High Court upheld the State Information Commission’s decision to deny a citizen access to CCTV footage recorded at a local police station. The court approved the government’s claim that the footage has sensitive contents barred from disclosure under Section 8(1)(g) of the RTI Act. This exemption clause was crafted only to prevent endangerment of a person’s life or physical safety or disclosure of the identity of intelligence informants. Nothing in the court’s order indicates that the judges examined the footage themselves to ascertain the truth. The court ruled that CCTV footage may be provided only to a competent court or a human rights commission (HRC), and only if a requester files a complaint about police behaviour with either of them.
The installation of CCTV cameras in various parts of a police station, except washrooms, and the preservation of the recordings for up to 18 months has become mandatory as a preventive measure against custodial torture. In December 2020, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court issued detailed directions for this purpose in the Paramvir Singh Saini case. Last September, a prominent Hindi-language daily reported several custodial deaths in Rajasthan within less than a year, and the police’s alleged denial of CCTV footage to the victims’ families under RTI. Within a few days, an alert apex court initiated suo motu proceedings to ascertain compliance with its 2020 directions. Discussions are on between the court-appointed amicus curiae and the central and state governments on the manner of funding available to implement these directions and for creating a public dashboard that will disclose, in real time, which CCTV camera has died in which police station.
Interestingly, three days ago, the Karnataka Information Commission reportedly imposed penalties in the Rs 15,000-25,000 range on three police officers for failing to act on its earlier direction to supply CCTV footage to an RTI applicant. The Kalaburagi-based Information Commissioner also recommended the initiation of disciplinary action against them.
In 2024, I collaborated with City Core Group – a community-level collective of human rights activists in Mumbai, mostly comprising women – to ascertain the status of compliance with the apex court’s directions. They walked into 33 of the 91 police stations without seeking any official permission, telling the police that those are public offices and that they have every right to ascertain compliance with court directions issued for their benefit. They also successfully obtained CCTV footage covering the duration of their presence in the stations from five of them, through RTI.
These contrasting realities beg the question: should CCTV camera footage become a sarkari secret, accessible only to courts and HRCs? Section 33(2) of Kerala’s 2011 Police Act states: “No Police Officer shall prevent any member of the public from lawfully making any audio or video or electronic record of any Police action or activity carried out in a public or private place.” Since 2022, the Bombay High Court has ruled more than once that a citizen cannot be prosecuted under the 1923 Official Secrets Act for recording his/her interactions with the police using a mobile phone, because a police station is not a notified ‘prohibited area’. If this is increasingly becoming the standard for police-public interactions, there is no reason why CCTV footage recorded by the police themselves should be denied to those who ask, unless the disclosure causes harm to any of the public interests protected by the RTI Act.
Readers might ask: how will CCTV cameras help when torture or extra-judicial killings occur in the field? Is it time to make body cameras an essential part of the outfits of our law enforcement personnel?
The writer wakes up every morning thinking someone somewhere is hiding something.
(Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.)
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